"Amazing Yet Still Not That Great"

To compare ANY game to the Final Fantasy series is extreamly unfair, considering the FF series is in a legue all of its own. However, there have been many non-FF games that have endured, and this is, sad to say, is not one of them.

The best part of this RPG is the seemless movie sequences with their amazing detail. Unfortunatly, the characters themselves fall short of this. They're blurred and very square/triangular shape, ruining the effect that was supposed to be produced. Some of the music is very catchy, but a lot of it is not really that great, especially compared to games like Final Fantasy (again in a league of its own) Chrono Trigger, or Legend/Secret of Mana.

Game Time This game is extreamly long, and it becomes even longer when you find yourself having to back-track all the time. Unlike other games that automatically take you back to where you want to be, this game forces you to walk all the way back to your destination--a very time consuming process. This becomes frustrating when you realize you're running out of healing potions (another flaw is you're only allowed to have 32 items at one time).

Characters The character development is pretty good, but I found myself frustrated with Shana, who kept wondering off. Her sweetness gave me too much of a tooth ache.

Plot The creators really tried to mix things up by making a lot of things secret, in which you had to keep going to find them out. Unfortunatly I found myself not really caring very much. There wasn't a lot of humor in this game, and the twists and turns served to confuse more than anything in the begaining of the game.

Fight Sequence The fight sequences were pretty good, but it was not really worth fighting smaller monsters when you got almost no expereience points on them.

Translation This is a major problem. The translations are very poor, and this becomes jarring at times. This flaw should NOT be found anywhere in this game.

Overall it's long, pretty dark, and has no real re-play ability. Not the worst RPG I've played, and actually is pretty good at times, but I don't seem myself remembering it in a few months.